It was barely afternoon when clouds began to sweep down from the north as their little elven ship sailed into the wind. They had a slightly less limited form of communication with their captain than just Danika's elven language skill. Shrubbery could understand his parrot, who apparently repeated everything he said.

The captain announced, "The storm is coming early, or we are meeting it on its way. We will continue north and hope to reach Wingtip Isle before it gets too fierce, but we won't make it to the Nadia capital today."

When Shrubbery had repeated the words that the parrot had repeated for them, Danika asked simply, "Tomorrow?" She was relieved to hear the echo of the elven word beneath her own.

The captain hesitated, but then replied, "If we make land safely, we can sail on in the morning for 2000 more coin."

After his words were translated again MatchlessMinion declared, "Let's do it."

Danika hesitated and then admitted, "I don't have the coin to spend, I only have 213 coin more than my contract with Logical Heart."

"Are you the only one in this party?" MatchlessMinion demanded.

It was exactly the same thing that Danika had asked him in the past. He had kept attacking before their guild members were ready in the old game they'd played. Shrubbery and Danika both laughed, and Danika grinned and admitted, "No. If you're willing to pay it, I'd appreciate it."

MatchlessMinion said, "I'll pay half of course."

Shrubbery giggled and said, "Ok, I'll pay the rest."

Danika grinned and the captain announced, "More trouble approaches with this storm."

Danika understood the word trouble, so by the time Shrubbery had repeated the parrot's repetition, her grin had long vanished. The three of them looked at the tiny dark dot at the edge of the storm in the far distance as the elven crew cried out in alarm.

The dot soon resolved itself into another sailing vessel as the captain calmly instructed his crew. A familiar black flag flew from its mast. The parrot's endless parroting was shown to be useful to the crew as it continued to repeat the captain's words from the rail at the front of the ship while the captain himself moved around freely, allowing the crew and their three passengers a consistent flow of understandable orders.

The approaching ship was dropping its sails as it tried to slow down, and the first of the cannons fired. Danika gazed incredulously as the the barrage approached the little elven ship. The elves were already organized, and returned fire with arrows that sparkled and flamed with various spells and enchantments.

A wall of water shot up in front of each ship a moment later. Some of the heavy cannon balls of the goblin pirates splashed through their own water wall and smashed into the deck, though more fell into the sea. Shrubbery bent and slapped her hands against one of the deck boards that had broken and a moment later it began to sprout leaves and the broken place grew closed.

The captain took one look and ordered her to go below with shouts and gestures, but Danika stopped him, "She's sun powered!"

Apparently he understood enough of her words, because he cursed and glanced at the sky that was quickly filling with clouds.

A moment later Danika zipped away from the elven ship toward the pirate vessel as the water wall fell away and the elves sent another wave of arrows. She activated her invisibility when she got close, hoping that she'd have been mistaken as just another arrow as she dove through the water wall that still guarded the pirate ship. Apparently the elves were faster with their arrows than the goblins were with their cannons.

The flaming arrows had all been doused, but some of the other arrows had hit and there were strange patches of ice, oil, and weirdly bubbles, scattered across the pirate ship where arrows had hit. A goblin stepped in one of the patches of bubbles and slid across the deck.

Danika glanced around frantically and dove through an open hatch. She renewed her invisibility and streaked through a narrow passage toward the loudest shouts. She spotted what she was looking for with relief. Even in a magical world the cannons were using some kind of flammable powder. She cast as many spark laden light cantrips as she had energy for, sending each particle into an open powder cask, and then fled.

As Danika zipped away from the pirate ship, the wall of water fell behind her, and a harpoon shot past her shoulder as her evasion skill flicked her automatically to the side. The entire side of the pirate ship exploded a moment later in a series of explosions like a firework finale, spitting debris, cannon balls and flaming goblins into the air and the ocean.

A soft chime rang in the distance, but it was not the chime of a skill, and Danika hit the deck of the elven vessel half expecting to land as some other kind of creature. MatchlessMinion caught her in his small hands as she rolled across the deck and the elven ship's wall of water rose again behind her. Danika tapped the storage ring on her wrist and withdrew all three of her energy potions.

"Give one to Shrubbery," she instructed as she popped the stopper of one of the vials and gulped down the potion.

MatchlessMinion didn't ask, he set her gently on the deck and scurried off with the other two vials.

Only one more cannonball and some random missiles of debris hit the ship despite the huge explosion of materials, and the elves dropped their wall of water again and began picking off the survivors. MatchlessMinion joined them, puffing a surprisingly deadly little dart at any goblin who floated close enough and Shrubbery continued to encourage the ship to fill in its own holes.

Danika took the gruesome task of zipping over the waves and using her wind slash to cut pouches and jewelry free of the bodies, and carried them to Shrubbery and MatchlessMinion with her featherweight spell. One of her skills leveled, but she didn't stop to look.

A few minutes later the sudden sea battle was over. It hadn't even lasted an entire bell. Sleet followed the clouds as the storm closed in over the elven ship, but the captain simply instructed them all to bundle up. He and his crew put on heavy fur-lined coats as Shrubbery and MatchlessMinion pulled out heavy cloaks for themselves. Then they wrapped ZipZing carefully in a silky handkerchief that interfered with her wings, but she didn't complain as she checked her health again just in case the shivering was a warning.

The crew sailed into the storm with triumphant faces. The little elven ship zigged and zagged as they tacked against the heavy winds. The elves used spells to knock the ice that formed on the sails off every few minutes. Less than an hour later they sailed into a cozy harbor with tall cliffs that blocked the north wind. They had safely reached Wingtip Isle.

After a brief discussion, that included the elf captain, the three logged out for a couple of hours.

--

Danika pulled herself out of the cool environment of the VR-medi pod and onto the warm floor with surprise. She checked the VR-medi pod's logs and even though she'd felt so cold and her room felt quite warm by comparison, it said it had only lowered the temperature on her by a few degrees.

After a moment of thought she did a few of her usual morning exercises and tried to boost her circulation before fixing a light supper. After she finished her food she spent a few minutes beside her window watching real snow fall in gentle flakes in the glow of the streetlights. Windows in the building directly across from her window glowed and twinkled here and there with people's Christmas decorations. In one window a real candle flame flickered alone, like a whisper of older traditions.

Danika set her alarms up first after returning to the confines of the VR-medi pod, and then returned to Wingtip Isle. The traveling merchant greeted her cheerfully, "Welcome back ZipZing, did you rest well?"

Danika thought about it for a moment and then nodded. She waddled over to him and asked, "Do you have any sort of winter outfit that might be less cumbersome than this scarf?"

The traveling merchant grinned at her with obvious amusement and replied, "I might have warmer options, but I don't think any of them would be less cumbersome. A furry hat to hide yourself in, for example?"

In the end she decided to trade some of the jewelry she'd stolen from the dead goblin pirates for more healing and energy potions instead. Dawn was just starting to lighten the sky when she asked, "Aren't you here awfully early?"

The merchant winked at her and replied, "But I hear that your ship sails north at dawn."

Danika glanced toward the dock, but delayed long enough to ask, "Do you have any advice for us?"

The merchant gave her another smile and replied, "Don't annoy the black turtle." He lifted his pack and called out, "Good luck ZipZing!" as he strode off into the narrow streets.

Danika stuffed her makeshift covering into her inventory, activated her wings, and zipped toward the elven ship. The air here was much chillier than the previous morning on the elven coast. Shrubbery and MatchlessMinion were waiting aboard the ship, and greeted her happily.

Shrubbery exclaimed, "The captain gave me an enchanted pearl that he says will let someone breathe underwater for a whole bell, in exchange for helping repair the ship!"

"Nice!" Danika replied happily.

MatchlessMinion said smugly, "My sister has been bragging about how many goblins she's killing with everyone else at that fortress on the plains, but I finished off over 20 goblins with my darts, so I've got more Karma saved up now than she does."

"She hasn't killed 20 yet?" Danika asked with surprise as the ship began to move.

"She claims she has killed 28," MatchlessMinion admitted, "but even with wizards like Justin the Grey bombarding the fortress with fire, it won't burn for some reason, so they're having a tough fight."